How to intercept?

[Zosimus]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

Yup, that is my experience also.

The game becomes much more cerebral and you have to have good spacial awareness in your head as to what is going on.

Instead of spending most of the game on the map screen, I spend most of it on the bridge, at the UZO, or at the periscope.

Steve

Well, if that's your thing, go for it.

Today I was sailing through the rain with 15 m/s winds and I noticed that I couldn't make better than 2 knots. The engines just couldn't run with that much water, so I submerged to wait it out. I immediately got a hydrophone contact–merchant closing. So I turned towards it at slow speed and put a little circle around it. A few minutes later I got a hydrophone update and calculated that it's course would take it within 1 km of my position. While I don't usually engage ships in the rain, I figured I owed it to him.

So I waited until the next hydrophone update and started the clock. Six minutes 29 seconds later I noted 1.8 covered. At 9:43 I noted 2.7 covered. Speed: 9 knots, course... 61º give or take.

So I set up the shot. The range was the only missing variable but in that kind of rain you need to be close so I aimed for 500 meters and waited submerged. I could see it getting closer on the hydrophone and so I set up the TDC. AOB 90º starboard, bearing 0º, speed 9 knots, range 500 m. My finger was hovering over the back full button, as in my experience the ships are always closer than the hydrophone guy says, but to my surprise the ship was a little further away, but still in easy visual range. Smokestack in the middle. So I locked the scope on and waited until the gyroangle changed. Then I started the timer. It took 8 seconds to go to the next gyroangle so I waited until it clicked to the next one, counted:

thousand one
thousand two
thousand three
thousand four... LOS!

You see, I have this theory that if you shoot at the ship when the gyroangle has just clicked over that the torpedo will tend to hit the ship at the bow whereas if you wait until it's almost ready to click to the next angle you'll hit it more towards the back. So 4 seconds should be exactly in the middle.

Less than a minute later the torpedo hit the ship just a hair behind the smokestack, and I called ahead slow, heading 61º but within a minute the sonar operator lost hydroscope contact. That must mean no propeller movement. So scope back up! Auto contact update guy, update the map!

Except he didn't.

So I sighed and went to the scope, found the foundering ship, clicked lock, and handed the observation scope to the weapons officer.

"Ach du heiliger Strohsack, Herr Kaleun! Es ist ein Schiff dort drüben!" he cried.

Yes, dumb ass, we torpedoed it about 4 minutes ago. Now put it on the map!

And so armed with this information I calculated a 5-waypoint path to put me on the far side of the ship facing it broadside. It didn't exactly work out as I'd hoped, but I wasn't more than 10 degrees off, so good enough. I peered through the scope at it and realized that I had another 2-3 hours to wait so I amused myself by trying to do all those things you apparently do when you're trying to sink a ship. I hit N, went to the book, and tried to ID the ship. The fourth time through the list of ships I decided that it had to be a small cargo ship. It bore very little resemblance to the picture in the book, but what else could it be? What's the next step? Range? How does that work... click here... that did nothing... click there... no... click over there? Yes, that did something... what in the hell am I looking at? Oh, wait... it wants me to... no, it doesn't... okay now I see. I can lower the little line to the waterline if I have the mast up. Okay well how do I cancel this thing? There, that seems to have done it. Range 2900. No, not even close. Okay, line up the mast... and click the thing... it sure is bouncing a lot in the wind... well, lower the thing... right around there. Range 842! Wow, that's precise! Let me check that against the map... no, the range is right around 600. So it's 40 percent off. Oh well, range doesn't matter right? What's next? Angle on bow? Well, it's probably 80ish. Let's roll with that. What happened? 77. Okay, well, close enough. Now what? Eyeball for speed? Okay, let's eyeball it. (singing jeopardy song). Long enough. Speed: 0 knots. I already knew that.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that I'd already torpedoed the ship without doing any of that and without using map updates to follow the little ship picture across the screen.

How long have I taken? Fifty minutes! I'm bored! Let's speed time up. 32x? No, scope down... okay now I can go 1024x... okay three hours! Scope up! Still there? I knew it. Ships don't go down in GWX with one torpedo no matter what that other guy... wth was his name... insisted... BLOW BALLAST! Man the deck gun! What's that you say? Abner es regnet? Yes, I know it's raining. I modded the sub file so that you can... what's that you say? Oh, only in high winds? But not in rain? Well, all right. Scope depth then... scope down... let's give it another 4 hours... scope up. Ship still there? Still raining? Another 4 hours... scope up... not raining? Good! Blow ballast! What's that? Yes, I know I can just call surface the boat, but I like blowing ballast at times like this. I get to the surface faster. Okay, you're right–it's not really faster but, it feels more impressive. Okay what's the wind speed? 7 knots. Man the deck gun! Fire at will!

Blub, blub, blub...

Have you loaded that torpedo yet? No? Why the hell not? Silent running? Oh yes, you're right... my bad... it's off now so load me a torpedo please. Head back on patrol men... one-third speed.